chicksdaddy writes: "A malicious software researcher finds herself in company with First Lady Michelle Obama and science fiction author Neil Gaiman: booted from the Web by hard-headed copyright protection algorithms, according to the Naked Security blog.

Mila Parkour, a researcher who operates the Contagio malware blog, said on Thursday that she was kicked off the cloud based hosting service Mediafire, after three files she hosted there were flagged for copyright violations and ordered removed under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The files included two compressed and encrypted malicious PDF files linked to Contagio blog posts from 2010.

The firm responsible for filing the DMCA take down notice was Paris-based LeakID, which describes itself as a "digital agency...founded by experts from the world of radio, television and Internet." LeakID markets "Leaksearch," an "ownership tool that will alert you within seconds if your content...is being pirated."

According to Parkour, Mediafire received a notice from LeakID claiming that it was "acting on behalf of the copyright owners," though the owners and presumed copyrighted content weren't named. Mediafire demurred, noting that under the DMCA, organizations that receive notices of copyright infringement must prevent the file from being shared, regardless of the legitimacy of the complaint.

In a conversation with Naked Security, Parkour said that she doubts the malicious PDF contain any copyright violations. LeakID seems to have a business model to "scout the web for all they find and then offer it for sale to copyright owners... there is no explanation of WHY and HOW they decided it was copyrighted," she wrote."